Posted in Central Ohio, Ohio Industrial History, Park review

Lockville Park

Lockville Park is a 6 acre park in Fairfield County containing the ruins of three locks from what was once the Ohio & Erie Canal. The park also has a covered bridge that was constructed in 1888. If you look at a map of Ohio, you'll see Lake Erie on the northern edge. The irregular southern edge is formed by the Ohio River. The Ohio River feeds into the Mississippi River which flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Both the Ohio River and Lake Erie provided convenient water transportation Read more ➜
Posted in History

Enjoying Real Maple Syrup at Stratford Woods

Saturday we went to Stratford Woods for a maple syrup event. They were serving organic, whole wheat pancakes with real locally made maple syrup, farm-fresh sausage and coffee. Delicious! After breakfast, we took a walk through the site to see how maple syrup is made. Throughout the property, maple trees had been tapped and white plastic buckets mounted to collect the tree sap. Farther down the trail, we came to the "sugar shack". Buckets full of sap were collected from Read more ➜
Posted in Central Ohio, Ohio Industrial History, Park review

Rock Mill

Rock Mill is a gristmill that was built in 1824 in Fairfield County. It is currently in the process of being restored. (Note: a gristmill grinds corn, wheat, or other grains into flour). We visited Rock Mill this past weekend. Rock Mill Road ends near the mill which is now a small Fairfield County park. The road follows the valley formed by the Hocking River (formerly known as the Hock-Hocking River). At the mill, the river plunges over a falls into a small gorge surrounded by 40-foot Read more ➜
Posted in Native American, Park review, Southeastern Ohio

Leo Petroglyph State Memorial

The Petroglyphs The Leo Petroglyph State Memorial is a site with about 37 petroglyphs (line drawings carved in stone). The petroglyphs were made on an outcropping of bedrock consisting of Black Hand sandstone. Based on the weathering of the exposed sandstone, it is believed that the carvings are about 700 years old. That age would make them the handiwork of the Fort Ancient Indians, a late prehistoric culture that was active in Ohio from about 1000 A.D. to 1650 A.D. I wasn't sure exactly what Read more ➜
Posted in Native American

How do anthropologists know anything about the Hopewell Indians’ beliefs?

When looking at the prehistoric artefacts and earthen structures in Ohio, I'm always wondering what meanings these things held for the people who created them. I end up reading whatever explanatory sign is posted nearby, but while I'm doing so I'm also wondering how anthropologists know any of this stuff. Since prehistoric societies don't leave any texts explaining themselves or their culture, anthropologists have to be making a lot of inferences. However when I was at Serpent Mound Read more ➜
Posted in Ohio Industrial History, Park review, Southeastern Ohio

Buckeye Furnace and Ohio’s Nineteenth Century Iron Industry

If you visit a number of parks and forests in Ohio, you will occasionally come across a structure built of sandstone blocks that resembles the bottom of a pyramid. A few of these are intact; many are just ruins overgrown with plants. These are the remnants of blast furnaces built in the early nineteenth century. But what are they doing out in the middle of the forest? In the above photo the topmost, wooden building is the bridge loft. Workers in the bridge loft dropped raw materials through Read more ➜
Posted in Geology, History, Park review, Southeastern Ohio

Big Rock

In early September we visited and stayed overnight at a 60 acre private park in Pike County. According to legend we were just a few hundred feet away from the lair of a spectral wolf named Old Raridan. The area is known as 'Big Rock' after the rocky peak that towers 200 feet above the surrounding country side. A small cave high on the side of the peak was also reputedly the home of the wolf Old Raridan who legend says was killed in an epic battle with local settlers at the end of the Read more ➜
Posted in Geology, Native American, Nature, Park review, Southwestern Ohio

Serpent Mound

A huge rock hurtles through the empty void of space. Its been orbiting the sun for hundreds of millions of years. But this orbit will be different. This time its trajectory and the orbit of earth intersect. It will impact somewhere in southern Ohio releasing energy equivalent to a large thermonuclear weapon and creating a crater five miles across. Alert the governor, start evacuations! But wait, it's already too late! It's too late because the impact occurred during the Permian Period Read more ➜
Posted in History, Park review, Southeastern Ohio

Hocking State Forest: Rock Climbing and Rappelling Area

On our visit to Balanced Rock we accidentally ended up in the Rock Climbing and Rappelling Area of Hocking State Forest. This 99-acre region of the Hocking State Forest contains a mile long escarpment of Blackhand sandstone varying in height, topping out at 100 feet. It is the only place on state land in Hocking County that is available for use by rock climbers and rappellers. That day we saw three groups of climbers using the cliff face. I'm not a rock climber, but the climbers seemed Read more ➜
Posted in History, Nature, Northeastern Ohio, Park review

Malabar Farm

Malabar Farm State Park was once the home of Louis Bromfield (1896 – 1956). He was a novelist and screenplay writer. His very first novel (The Green Bay Tree) was a critical and commercial success. His third novel (Early Autumn) won Bromfield a Pulitzer Prize. He was good friends with movie star, Humphrey Bogart (deemed to be the greatest, male film star of all time by the American Film Institute). When Bogart and Lauren Bacall were making their wedding plans, Bromfield offered them the use of Read more ➜